| Description |
1 online resource (ix, 256 pages) : illustrations |
| Contents |
The historiographical context -- Why it matters: two ideas of efficiency -- The historical context -- The culture of feedback as practice and form -- Systems, ecology, and environmentalism. Systems ecology and information theory ; Ecological thinking versus game theory ; Gary Snyder's ecological ethic ; The subversive science ; Nature's feedback -- Self-organizing systems and mind in nature. General systems theory ; Coevolution ; Gaia -- Crying Indian. The crying Indian ; The ecological critique of the scientific method ; Neo-paganism and ecofeminism ; Inheriting native ways ; Native American intellectuals and ecological thinking -- Talking with plants. Ecology and plants' rights ; Vegetal signings ; Listening to our vegetal selves ; Psychedelics: talking plant-to-plant ; Freaks like us ; Music for plants -- Ambient music. Sonic meditations ; Noise as pollution ; Acoustic ecology and "schizophonia" ; Ambient sound ; Ambient drone and just intonation: the influence of Indian classical music ; Evolving pieces: music as an ecological system ; Brian Eno's ambient music for airports -- Dancing with animals. Beyond behaviorism ; The willfulness of dolphins and horses ; Whale song ; Animal choreographies ; Contact improvisation ; Horse whispering ; Choreographies of confinement ; A tale of two dolphins -- Neo-orthodoxies. Genetic determinism ; The resurgence of game theory and the end of limits ; Protective barriers -- Conclusion: a metahistory |
| Summary |
When we want advice from others, we often casually speak of "getting some feedback." But how many of us give a thought to what this phrase means? The idea of feedback actually dates to World War II, when the term was developed to describe the dynamics of self-regulating systems, which correct their actions by feeding their effects back into themselves. By the early 1970s, feedback had become the governing trope for a counterculture that was reoriented and reinvigorated by ecological thinking. The Culture of Feedback digs deep into a dazzling variety of left-of-center experiences and attitudes from this misunderstood period, bringing us a new look at the wild side of the 1970s. Belgrad shows us how ideas from systems theory were taken up by the counterculture and the environmental movement, eventually influencing a wide range of beliefs and behaviors, particularly related to the question of what is and is not intelligence. He tells the story of a generation of Americans who were struck by a newfound interest in--and respect for--plants, animals, indigenous populations, and the very sounds around them, threading his tapestry with cogent insights on environmentalism, feminism, systems theory, and psychedelics. The Culture of Feedback repaints the familiar image of the '70s as a time of Me Generation malaise to reveal an era of revolutionary and hopeful social currents, driven by desires to radically improve--and feed back into--the systems that had come before |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-252) and index |
| Notes |
In English |
|
Online resource; title from pdf title page (Proquest, viewed August 13, 2020) |
| Subject |
Ecology -- United States -- Philosophy -- History -- 20th century
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Environmentalism -- United States -- History -- 20th century
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HISTORY -- General.
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Ecology -- Philosophy
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Environmentalism
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United States
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| Genre/Form |
Electronic books
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History
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| ISBN |
9780226652672 |
|
022665267X |
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